Named for local Broadway star Tom Wopat, the Tommy Awards Program at Overture Center for the Arts encourages, recognizes and honors excellence in high school musical theater each year and culminates in an annual awards show in Overture Hall. The 8th Annual Awards Tommy Awards Show will be held on Sunday, June 11, 2017, at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25 and will go on sale to the public Monday, May 22 at 11 a.m.

"We continue to be impressed with the quality and caliber of the productions, as well as the dedication these schools and communities to the growth of their high school musical excellence," said Tim Sauers, Overture's VP of Programming and Community Engagement. Sauers began this program at Overture eight years ago. "This year was our biggest Tommy season yet due to the expansion into Central Wisconsin, with 87 productions at 82 schools. We saw everything from classics like Fiddler on the Roof and Hello, Dolly! to contemporary, cutting-edge musicals such as Rock of Ages and Billy Elliot."

Participation Statistics 2016/17

- 87 productions

- 82 schools

- 23 counties

- 35 reviewers (three reviewers attended each production)

- 400+ students performing in annual awards show in Overture Hall

- 85,000 people involved in the Tommy Awards through engagement with their local high school musical

In honoring excellence, there are multiple award recipients in each award category, including Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Orchestra, Outstanding Leading Performance, Outstanding Supporting Performance, Outstanding Dance Performance, and Outstanding Musical Direction. A full list of recipients is attached.

Outstanding Musical Recipients for 2016/17:

Billy Elliot The Musical - Oconomowoc High School

Fiddler on the Roof - Fond du Lac High School

Hello, Dolly! - St. Ambrose Academy

In The Heights - Dominican High School

Into the Woods - Craig High School

Into the Woods - Verona Area High School

Les Misérables - Monona Grove High School

Les Misérables - Whitefish Bay High School

Little Shop of Horrors - Wauwatosa West High School

Rock of Ages High School Edition - Whitnall High School

Shrek the Musical - Central Wisconsin Educational Theater Alliance

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Shorewood High School

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - Holmen High School

The Addams Family - Arrowhead Union High School

Urinetown, The Musical - Middleton High School

Urinetown, The Musical - Sun Prairie High School

Students at participating high schools can participate in the Tommy Performance Ensemble, become a Student Critic and attend workshops with Broadway tour performers.

Overture and Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) will partner again this year and a one-hour program featuring performances from the upcoming awards show in June will be aired in fall of 2017. This partnership is a part of WPT's Young Performers Initiative which celebrates Wisconsin's young artists and those who inspire them.

Overture Center is pleased to collaborate with the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts and The Grand Theater expanding the reach of the Tommy Awards to the greater Milwaukee and Wausau area schools.

This program was supported in part by American Girl's Fund for Children, A. Paul Jones Charitable Trust, Kuehn Family Foundation, and a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

OVERTURE CENTER FOR THE ARTS in Madison, Wisconsin, features seven state-of-the-art performance spaces and five galleries where national and international touring artists, ten resident companies and hundreds of local artists engage people in nearly 700,000 educational and artistic experiences each year. Visit Overture.org.